“Help! We need a healer! Please!” the man whose J didn’t know tinued screaming. Stanton didn’t hesitate to turn from walking into the firehouse.

  “Where?” He demanded.

  “Up there.” The man panted while pointing up the road towards the church. “Just up the turn past the church.”

  The man tried to expin more, but Stanton didn’t pay him any heed. Instead, he sprinted down the road in the dire of the person that needed help. TJ tried to follow suit, but even after activating Diviransformation, he was far from capable of catg up to the sprightly old man. Just about a minute had passed sihe man’s screams had bee audible, and already Stanton had run nearly a mile towards the person who needed support.

  TJ watched as Stanton turhe er and disappeared from view. By the time TJ turo er to be able to see what was happening, Stanton was holding a thrashing man he reized with one hand, the other on a nearby tree. A faint green glow passed through the Druid and into the fallen Disciple. As TJ watched, Jordan, the healer that he’d apanied on the first hunt the day before, stilled. Fearing the worst, TJ tinued running forward. Jordan’s body remaiill, and TJ readied himself to give apologies and iserations.

  Just as he opened his mouth to do so, though, Jordan gasped and choked out an unfortably full mouthful of blood. Only now that he was so close could TJ tell that Jordan had been cut in the base of his throat, the still wet blood staining his shirt. The rec Disciple tio retd gag, red spittle dribbling from the ers of his mouth.

  “Keep moving.” Stanton anded, looking at their surroundings and evaluating whatever surrouhem. “We’ll talk once we’re safe.”

  Nobody argued with the statement, and the haggard two dozen people stood up, a few coyote corpses slung across their shoulders, and resumed traveling towards town. Blood and torn clothing accessorized every member of the hunting party, and the, if ed, at least battle-ready faces that had filled every face the night before, were now downcast, fearful, aant. The few mihat followed passed in near silehe g of feet on gravel and the quiet whisper of the wind being the only things that TJ could hear. As it frequently did, the wind seemed to be trying to say something to him, and this time, TJ indulged it.

  Unsurprisingly, it had nothing of o say. What little he could uand was simply that it wahere to be more water so that it could carry a storm. TJ almost doubted what he’d heard from it before, the few warnings he’d felt from the om air. He sighed and shook it from his mind. Instead, he retered himself, looking at the people surrounding him. They were exhausted at best, and needed a rest. Their leader, a woman it took TJ a moment tnize as Natalie the Acolyte, the one Zig called Nat, was limping, fav her right leg.

  The party as a whole rexed somewhat as they stepped into the bounds of the city proper, definitely well past the border denoting the safe zone. Even so, the harried and exhausted group didn’t cease looking around until they dispersed to enter wherever they could sneak in a rest.

  “What happened?” TJ asked Natalie as she doggedly tinued her path towards the firehouse. “Did anyone die?”

  She sighed. “Thank all that’s holy, no. It got close for a lot more than just Jordan, though.”

  “Ok. And how did it all happen?” TJ insisted.

  “Started off normal enough. Ran into a couple wild animals, nothing new. No pukwudgies, though that wasn’t too weird. Couple people said we should go a bit deeper, see if we couldn’t find anything there. I didn’t want to at first, Laura’d said something about how it was good to be cautious today. Eventually, we just weren’t running into anything, and so we decided to go deeper, get some experience, you know? There were a couple things we ran into, but nothing dangerous. Until it suddenly was.

  “A ton of pukwudgies surrounded us all at oheir spears focused on the Disciples. Course, we were proteg them, so the Zealots and Acolytes took the most hits, Kaini helped a lot with keeping them away. Holy, she’s one of the main reaso away. She’s got her water magic or whatever, and that kept a lot of the sed wave of spears from hitting us. We fought our way out of them, killing a couple, but we were surrounded and more focused oing out of there. Once we got out, it seemed like we were gonna make it. Lots of wounded, but nobody died so we were feeling pretty good. Our Disciples all exhausted themselves to heal everybody up enough to keep moving.

  “Just as we got far enough away to think that we were home free, the pukwudgies returned for a final volley. We weren’t ready. Jordan got the worst of it, with the spear in his throat. Everyone else got hit once, but Jordan…” Natalie took a shuddering breath. “I retty sure he was dead. If Jake hadn’t thought to go get help as fast as he did, I’m sure Jordan would have died. Thank you, by the way,” Natalie said, looking at Stanton. “If you hadn’t hurried as much as you did, then we would have lost him.”

  Stanton raised a hand dismissively. “Just in time, that’s all. Gd he’s gonna pull through.”

  “I’m going to see if there’s someone avaible to heal me.” Natalie said as she limped towards the firehouse. TJ let her go, g his jaw in worry. If the pukwudgies alone were posing such a threat to the right now, how were they going to deal with everything else that was going to e? Just under nine days remained, and though the total number of pukwudgies and other monsters iorial wasn’t going to ge, the number was only going to grow.

  “I think we might be up shit creek.” Stanton said, watg her go. “You got any ideas?”

  “I should ask you. You fought inam, you’ve got experience.”

  “Don’t ask me. Don’t know anything. All I say is that we don’t have the o do what the military usually does. A guerril force usually works that way because they’ve got fewer numbers and arms than the people they’re ambushing. That’s not what’s happening here. We’re outnumbered, and if we t the wendigos and any htmarish Elite monster out there, we’re outguoo. It’s a superior number of guerrils, so we o limit our casualties while killing as many of them as possible.”

  “Yeah, that’s true, but you just told me to kill more of them than they kill of us.”

  “At its core, the way to win a fight is to win the damned fight. Five me for not having some amazing wisdarding how to teract the stant attacks of a force of goblins that turn invisible and keep growing in number.” Stanton’s usual good humor had melted away, a real frustration and aoug his words. “So yeah, for now, my pn is to kill as many of them as I manage. You have anything else to add?”

  TJ shook his head. “Just that we o get as many people Occupations and levels as fast as we manage. I’ve got ao help with that in town, but I think we o push everyoo at least level 5 in their Css, ideally by the end of today or tomorrow.”

  “That’s a hard ask, kid.”

  “For now, that’s all I add.”

  Stanton grunted, a little of his good humor returning. “I’ll let Laura know you’re looking for her if I run into her. Isn’t there something you were meaning to be doing?”

  TJ scoffed. “I guess. I’ll be back at the . When you see her, let Laura know that I’d like to see some of her notes on Occupations today as well.”

  Stanton nodded before walking into the firehouse. By the time TJ had jogged to the , still with his nearly fotten bag of ons in his backpack, Stanton had carried someo of the firehouse and towards a nearby t tree. While the old man gained experience for his Occupation, TJ decided it was finally time to go about creating some shoes that would st him a little longer. He Appraised the javelina hides he’d set to cure just a couple days ago.

  Item: Tanned javelina hide, Dirt. A hide removed from a javelina’s corpse. It has been tahe process artificially accelerated by the creator’s presen a Tutorial. Due to its preparation by the brain-tannihod, the leather of the hide is more supple than it would have been if created by other methods. It be used to provide an increase iao enviroal cold, or as a material iing equipment.

  Though he hadn’t expected otherwise, the wholly ordinary nature of these hides was disappointing pared to the ily magical and impressive natures of the materials gathered from the wendigos. The wind seemed to titter something in TJ’s ear as he sighed and allowed his mind to rex. He’d been so focused and stressed and driven these st few days that he hadn’t noticed the wind’s stant desire to unicate with him. As he gathered up the materials to make a pair of mocs with soles so thick they were better called shoes, TJ idly listeo the winds’ whispers, though they didn’t seem to mean anything.

  Finally, with the gut aher id out in front of him, TJ pulled his personal Wendigo Bde from his jacket pocket and pced it oable. He was ready to begin the creation.

  Of course, that was when Laura knocked on the door.

  “e in!” TJ shouted, trying to hold any frustration from his tone. Nearly as soon as he spoke, the door swung wide open and Stantoured for Laura to walk in. She did, and TJ couldn’t help but notice she’d finally abahe pantsuit entirely. Now, she wore what just about everyone was–some variation of jeans, boots or sneakers, and a jacket over a tee shirt.

  “Stanton said you had something to show me in here?” Laura asked. TJ noticed that there was a small fleck of blood on the cuff of her jacket and nowhere else. A mischievous part of him sidered alerting her of the fact, but the rest of him quickly tamped that down.

  “I have some ons to pass on to other people, and some other things to talk with you about. Seems like the thing I wao talk about has already e up though.”

  “Alright. Then start with the ons, I suppose.” Laura looked disied, and when she saw the bdes, she couldn’t hide the brief moment of disgust that fshed over her face. Then, when she saw the haft of the ick for what it was, she actually dropped it to the table.

  “Are you serious?”

  “Appraise them.”

  Laura cocked her head and did so, before theantly gathering the items up. “Do you have a bag, or a towel or something so I don’t have to hold all these? They’re frankly disgusting.”

  “Sure.” Stanton answered before walking into the bathroom down the hall to collect a towel. While he did so, Laura tio look at TJ.

  “There must be something more, or else you wouldn’t have asked me to e.”

  “That’s true. Look, those ons there represehan half of the materials from the two wendigos. I keep processing them aing experience. Frankly, I’d like to because they represent a lot of experience. However, you see that the ons are only of the quality that they are because of the materials. I didn’t do anything special. I’ve gotten some pretty stelr Skill options preseo me because I made these. It’d probably be in our best io ehat as many people as possible reach higher levels and have as high quality Skills as possible, so I’m, well, not because they’re not all just mine, but I’m saying that maybe we should have some other people work on this too.”

  “So that’s why you asked that I bring a copy of the Occupations found withiown.” Laura nodded. “Makes se isn’t necessary, though. I’ve already memorized everyone’s Css, Occupation, if they have it, and Bloodline. I’ll round up whoever has an Occupation that be from this, as well as any who haven’t yet acquired an Occupation. We o push everyone who hasn’t gained an Occupatioo make more deliberate strides towards that. Though there were several deaths this m, it may push the more hesitant to greater effort.”

  After dropping that bombshell, Laura stood, gathered the ons all together iowel Stantht, and walked out the door. “Thank you, TJ. Was there anything else?”

  “I was going to talk about the monsters getting smarter, but it looks like we’ve all already seen that.”

  “Yes. Would you do me a favor on that at?”

  “Sure?”

  “ime you’re out there, kill as many of the fuckers as you .”

  Without another word, Laura stalked out of the house.

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